Nokia 808 Review: Damian Dinning of Nokia Responds

Damian Dinning is Lead Program Manager of 'Imaging Experience' at Nokia.

We were in touch with several Nokia representatives throughout the process of producing our recent review of the Nokia 808 PureView. Following its publication, Damian Dinning - Lead Program Manager of Imaging Experience at Nokia wrote to us responding to some of the issues that we raised and explaining why those decisions were made in the phone's development.

August 1st, 2012

Dear dpreview.com

Great to see the 808 PureView receiving your Gold Award – thank you. Our team are both delighted and extremely proud of their collective achievement.

I thought I’d just take some time out to share some insights/background behind some of the decisions/trade-offs we made given some of the excellent points you noted in the review.

Whilst we wanted to provide a rich set of controls which cover key elements such as focus, exposure, brightness/colour and composition especially for those who take a more involved role in the capture phase, we also wanted to keep as clean and as uncluttered viewfinder as possible. As you might imagine however, it’s very hard to get this balance just right. Personally speaking I find most of not all digital camera viewfinder/info screens are either all or nothing. We continue to seek the best balance in this regard, but equally, recognise we can never get this right for everyone.

This principle led us to a number of decisions we felt all things considered where the right ones:

Specifically…

Histogram:

We believe not everyone uses it or knows how to use it and even fewer need/use it all the time. Our solution was therefore to provide one click access from the EV adjustment button. You can either just check it or check and adjust, it’s up to you. But then you can easily hide it too. As aid we wanted to retain as much viewfinder real estate as possible.

Slide zoom:

We felt the conventional method of 'assisted' zoom is too slow and lacks sufficient control and precision. What I mean by assisted zoom is basically anything other than manual zoom as on most SLRs. Whilst manual zoom is fast and precise it’s almost impossible to zoom smoothly, important for video of course. The slide zoom capability we're introducing for the first time with the 808 PureView provides a level of precision and speed pinch to zoom and motorised zooms are unable to provide.

Often with these methods you end up under/over shooting and/or moving the device during the operation. Furthermore, in the case of motorised controls, you’re often having to wait for the zoom to travel from one point to another. With slide zoom it allows you to frame the shot similarly to cropping in photo editing applications and then when happy with the framing, simply releasing your ginger from the display it either quickly zooms to that setting in the case of stills or in video smoothly and more slowly to the pre-set framing.

We use an acceleration/deceleration curve at the start/stop phases of zoom too, impossible with other methods and then aim to handle all those pixels as smoothly as possible. Ideally I would have liked it to be even smoother. Zooming out is more conventional. We did prototype the same method of zooming for zoom out but in trials we found it to be counter intuitive. Again based on trials we found once people had used it for a while it becomes very intuitive, fast and easy. As I think you pointed to in your own conclusion. Our own user testing showed that after this period everyone preferred it to conventional zoom methods.

ISO setting:

We found the optimal number of touch controls along the side of the viewfinder in a screen of this size to be 5. This dictated the size of the touch targets. No doubt people will chime in and comment on this point but this was the recommendation from our usability experts to achieve good usability in the camera. This in turn dictated the area for text, which in some languages the characters used require more space than the often used English versions. However, as with all the icons we prioritised at least indicating that a function was set to a setting different to the default. Increasing the size of the buttons would have impacted more on the viewfinder which we were keen to avoid.

Exposure:

The 808 PureView uses a system which is more heavily influenced (unless faces are detected) by objects in the centre. Half press of the physical shutter release button (assuming touch to focus has not been set) locks both focus and exposure which for most situations should provide the desired results. However, this is an area I think with some small amount of innovation can improve the experience for the future.

Viewfinder:

Given there is no optical viewfinder of course we do prioritise the brightness of the viewfinder in very bright and very dark conditions to increase usability. In bright conditions we increase the brightness of the display accordingly to make it as visible as possible and in very low light conditions we increase the read time (reduce the viewfinder refresh rate) to increase the effective brightness of an otherwise dark scene. Unfortunately this results in a trade-off in such situations in the accuracy of the image as a preview which may explain some of the challenges you experienced with exposure compensation.

Comments

Groundbreaking technology in a Phone, thanks Damian for bringing this to the masses! I only like dragging around my Canon 5D mk ii when I'm doing a paid shoot, but my 808 Pureview is always in my pocket for an amazing shot!!

@ Vestmelter "....... the phone is remarkably unimpressive because it is based on Nokia’s ancient Symbian operating system. That means web-browsing that’s so slow you might as well not bother even comparing it to Apple or Android. And it means an interface that is in places as clunky in its design as the bulbous Pureview" doe newspapers http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/nokia/9378495/Nokia-Pureview-808-review.html For me the incapability goes to the O.S in relation with the price of the phone

Understand so you are not comparing phone or communcation functionality (signal reception in low coverage area's, talk time, built in SIP clients, Skype GTalk etc..) but rather judging web surfing as main criteria. I agree the 808 is not the surfing device of choice. I have an N900 for that. It is pocketable and complements the 808 very well. The 808 can serve as mobile access point.N900 provides Tor, Firefox with noscript and adblock and full ip-tables Linux firewall control to block all greedy advertisement and data mining companies.For sure Android has recently done a good catching work and has now also full Firefox features still missing on the iOS.

But to use your words: most platforms are still too incapable as a phone in my own judgement :)

Only the camera in the 808 can make me compromise into using the 808 as main phone.

To increase the 808's surfing speed: turn of the Flash and auto-reload feature and there you go, web browsing is already a lot quicker.

A weak dynamic range with blown highlights can get tedious very quickly...add that to a Symbian system and I'm left with the feeling that this is nearly ready but it is not there yet. I had an XZ1 and the highlight clipping became an issue for me. Nokia has gone with Windows and that could be a mistake too. Android is the developers dream .... For the future I would love to see a much greater dynamic range. However, this phone for the early adopter is bound to do ok. Nokia has brought this out to make lots of early adopter sales. They probably have the next 3 generation phones sat in the factory waiting to go..... :-)Kudos to Nokia for bringing this tech to the market....it is definitely a huge step forward in camera phones! :-)

You must be kidding. Have you ever tried to do something houseful for Android, which necessitates going to NDK? Sheesh.Sure, Symbian used to be worse, but with posix compatibility and QT added in the recent years it is much more bearable.

MR. Damian Dinning, I appreciate your candor & staright forward comnents and rational for the design trade tradeoffs made when executing the Nokia 808 build. There are many Fortune 500 comapnies that should learn a lesson from your perspective. Consumers understand tradeoffs, we don't like being lied to. I will consider a Nokia product in the future.

I won't ever for my part. I don't like to give my hard-earned money to a company that is unable to manage itself well enough to avoid firing 10000 (!!!) employees when it reorganises its business (cf: http://www.wired.com/business/2012/06/nokia-fires-10000-looks-to-undercut-cheap-android-phones/ ).

Don't feed the monster otherwise don't be surprised it will become more and more voracious... and a model for every other companies, even the one that hired you or each member of your family.

I did, and you did you ? Really ? Is saying nor doing nothing to protest against that sort of scandalous management a good politic to you ? I don't care for Nokia, there will always be enough people who just think to their own pleasure to buy their products. But if some of us boycott Nokia, maybe this will become more difficult for them to make ends meet, and ultimely, they will try to avoid such a politic that can irritate their customers and make them lose some big bucks.

Never ever forget the old proverb: silence means consent. I, for my part, won't be silent. I thank you by the way to give me another opportunity to point it out.

WilliamJ, seriously I think you don't have a clue on what is going on, or perhaps like Infms said you just haven't thought things through. The layoffs were necessary to conserve cash as Nokia is going through a rough patch at the moment - you have been reading the papers, or have you not? In any case, Nokia was outspending even Apple so it makes sense to realign their expense ratio. Boycotting the product will only aggravate the situation and likely result in even more jobs lost. Despite your posturing I don't think you actually have Nokia employees' well being at heart. Or you don't happen to work at Cupertino, do you?

In any case, this is a photographic review and your vendetta against the company has no place here. Go picket, take to the streets if you must, but please take your grouses elsewhere.

To MistyFog: it's so easy to spot a dishonest person, that's the one who shows to have a two standards rolling in his veins. You demand me to "leave my vendetta" outside.

1) who do you think you are to demand anything to anybody here ? Only Dpreview webmasters are qualified to scold a member if they find it necessary. Are you one of these webmasters ? If not, your authority is nil.

2) why didn't you demand rick1000 to shut up too, as he's largely praised the Nokia way of managing in the first place, which has nothing to do with photography. Really, other Forbes 500 big companies should take model on the Nokia way to fire 10000 to stay an even keel ? Very good model, indeed !

To sum up, let me tell you if you want to be credible, behave with equity and don't overestimate your importance on a site where you're nothing more than another citizen. Understood ?

I think you are too blinded by hatred to actually read what rick1000 is trying to say. This is a thread about Damian Dinning sharing his views and some of the thoughts that went into the product, and if I read rick1000 correctly he is basically thanking Mr Dinning for sharing these info and wishing that other companies will have the same level of communication and candor with their customers. You may agree or disagree with Mr Dinning but I sure do appreciate the time he takes to explain things to the customers. I agree with rick1000 on this. Meanwhile, YOU had to hijack this thread to push your own agenda against Nokia.

Hatred ? Me ? You're wrong, in this like in other things. But how to talk with somebody who is so full of prejudices ?

How to talk with someone who thinks a company who fired a total of 40000 employees in just two years (cf: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/352117/20120614/nokia-elop-job-cuts.htm ) is a good enough company ?

How to talk with someone who thinks product of this company deserves to be bought just because it got good reviews and is affordable, disregarded its competitive price and it's strong advertisement is the result of super-harsh company choices ?

Is it possible to talk with someone who polarizes himself on the efficiency of a product without considering any ethic background ?

And be sure I didn't hijack this thread. Rick1000 said he would consider buying a Nokia product because he' been pleased by its communication ability. To that, I answered I didn't consider to buy any Nokia product for the reasons I gave. Is it allowed to have a different opinion, yes or no ?

WilliamJ, rick1000 made a simple statement that it's commendable for companies to engage their customers. And I did enjoy reading the information shared by Damian, and felt that I have in fact learnt something on UI design. There is nothing wrong to thank someone for sharing information, to express the wish that more companies do the same.

This is a very simple situation where a reader enjoyed reading a particular item posted at the site, and expressed appreciation for the person providing that information. Very simple and should have ended at that! There is no need to bring in unrelated topics with the obvious purpose to undermine someone. If you have issues with a particular business decision by a company please bring that up in the appropriate forum, for goodness sake not a site dedicated to photography! I can easily imagine you trolling EVERY forum where Nokia is mentioned (especially if in positive light) to make your smear/attack. Looks like a troll, sounds like a troll.

And you forgot "tastes like a troll" to be complete... or to be completely off mark. I don't have any relation with Nokia, have no need to take revenge of it (I've not been fired by this company, for instance) and have never been angry against one of its product as I've never bought a Nokia. I just intended to say personally, I won't ever buy a product of a company who fired so many good workers in order to stay in a race that ruins families just to sell not-too-expensive-camphone on an already over-saturated market.

Pyrrhic victories are not my taste.

Well, I've said what I had to, no less no more. For the rest, Petrogel has said it all.

EOSHD has posted a VERY good review to http://www.eoshd.com/content/8674/nokia-pureview-808-review-and-vs-iphone-4s , certainly worth a read.

They state the following:

1, the DR of the camera is much better than that of the iPhone 4S (and, consequently, the S3). I REALLY recommend checking out the direct comparison of the two phones in the two shots right under the sentence "Highlight roll off, although not as nice as a DSLR of course is better than most small chip pocket cameras and certainly an improvement over the iPhone 4S.".

2, highlight clipping can easily be fought by artificially decreasing the contrast. (Of course, by dialing-in a -0.x exposure correction also works. The article states the shadows aren't very noisy.)

3, now, for the bad: as was easy to see based on GSMArena's ISO 12233 and other, comparative test shots, the 1080p effective video resolution is certainly worse than that of the 4S (and a lot other cameras / phones). Damian, do you plan to fix this?

I don't know whether I'm the only one in this forum to feel there is like a marketing flood in action: so many people who had never posted before suddenly appeared to tell us how fantastic the Nokia is and how it can do as well as a good camera, by the way it's so good it could easily replace any P&S camera and so on. A real gospel !

Too many people telling the same thing and intending to prove - what for ? - that if you buy yourself this item you won't need a camera any longer... very suspect. Where this urging to convince us of such a strange idea comes from ?

I think it is because people really want it to be exceptionel and fantastic.

Of course it is possible to take great shots with this camera in perfect light and with the right person behind the lens, but that can be done with an iPhone, Android or Lumia.

I guess a lot of people are going to be a bit disappointed, because this phone is not going to take great photos by itself and especially not in difficult lighting conditions.

I have seen really good pictures taken with this phone, but then again (and no offence) looking at the samples here at Dpreview the output is not very convincing if compared to for instance an S100 which I would choose any day to this camera phone if I could have only one camera.

Has it ever occurred to you that maybe, just maybe, there are those who bought an 808 and are happy with their purchase? I'm wondering how we can verify that, perhaps Amazon might have some customer reviews available?

You don't like the 808, fine, DON'T BUY IT. Please stop making all sorts of insinuations here (fake accounts etc) without basis. There are enough genuine 808 owners who just love their phones and the pictures coming out from it, and not to mention the positive reviews from various websites. I find your insinuations very offensive and I hope you will have the maturity to refrain from making them.

It seems it's a new trend to demand defiantly others to shut up when their opinions are disturbing. Yet it's easy, if our doubts about so many people suddenly feeling in their guts the urging need to promote the camphone they bought so expensively are unfounded, what's the matter ? If the product is really good enough, it will sell like hot cakes. What are you affraid of ? That we might be right, perhaps ?

This could be a good niche of a camera smartphone in the future.But it sorely needs these changes :1) More camera modes and options.2) Underwater camera phone container3) New OS. Best to be Android. Not Windows 8.Waiting for the next model soon.You indeed wasted precious time and resources on the Symbian OS phone. It is dead on the water.

I own the 808 and I love it. I really liked my Olympus XZ-1 but I sold it after I got the 808, because I wasn't carrying it as often as I thought I would.

I've used iPhones before and I have to say, I've been impressed with Symbian. It is very responsive and I don't find it to be much worse than iOS unless you don't like using a browser (I use Opera) and are dependent on apps. Granted I would probably prefer Android.

What I would like to see most is a built-in HDR mode, because manually generating HDR images on a PC would somewhat defeat the convenience of a camera phone. Plus it would help with the highlight clipping.

A underwater container? Heh I don't think that would make most peoples' priority lists :p The phone will fit in most waterproof plastic bags though...

As another XZ-1 user; I cant decide any other thing to replace my baby white XZ-1 ;) But i promise next camera that i will purchase (maybe 4 years later) would be a Hardcore DSLR or even a full frame one.

I even starting to think that Olympus is very late to show its XZ-1´s rival... first Samsung make its cam´s wi-fi... then canon bring outbiggest sensor to G series... and then sony made it pocketable.. BUT THIS LAST ONE... Nokia really hit the target no wonder.

By the way soon i will also pruchase XZ-1´s housing, i also dreaming some underwater case for Nokia... but then... imagine, you are about to take some fish foto, suddenly your phone rings! and the fishes swam away coz of the noise :)))

THIS is what I wanted! Thank you DPREVIEW, Thank you Mr. Damian, this is what makes us come here (me at least!) to devour scrumptious morsels ... such tantalising titbits from the leaders of the camera industries that we admire and adore ... I am eager to see where these exciting developments and beautiful engineering takes us! To the everlasting images!

Oh dear, I sincerely hope that I did not offend you! Just got a might excited is all (blushing ..) and perhaps a tad inebriated as I typed! It happens, lol. Can't deny though that these are some pretty flipping sweet developments, and signs of good things to come for photography gear nuts like us!

I have used 808 for a while, and I am pretty pleased with the IQ. For me the most important camera is the one which I always with me, not DSLR's at home.

There is one pretty annoying feature, which I decided to point out:

I would wish, that I could save the creative mode settings, for example in similar way as in Canon C1, C2, C3 modes. Right now, if I choose setting L1 and need to take a macro shoot, I change focus to macro. Unfortunately this also comes as new setting L1, so next time when I use camera, I need to change focus again.

I would prefer that the L1, L2 and L3 would be settings which are separately saved, so that when ever I choose any of them, they would always start with the my own, saved settings, and not with the ones which I modified last time.

They can buy that panasonic sensor just as anyone can. Why hasn't any o/t other player do that.

The same with Sony. They make sensors themselves (tech obtained from Minolta ages ago). Instead of marketing Xmor-RE sensor why nor stick a REAL XMor-sensor in these xperias and use a proper GLASS lens (perhaps a Carl Zeis one). I'm sure carl zeiss would sell to anyone who puts a bag of money on the table (the same for Panasonic).

So instead of talking down on Nokia, PUSH the others into doing the same. Come on HTC, Sony, LG, Samsung (ditch that lousy 8Mpixel Sony-sensor and stick at least a 12Mpixel XMor but preferably this 41-panasonic into the future Galaxy S IV)

Never a big fan of camera phone.... until NOW! These images are simply impressive by a smart phone.I would vote Damian as the CEO of Nokia for his genuine, logical and yet humble feedback. He would have turned around Nokia's product & stock....hmm.(Camera companies now please take notes!)

I'm completely convinced that ALL whom had the pleasure to actually meet Mr. Dinning will agree as well. They ought to sack that ex-MCSFT CEO and put someone in charge whom actually ACCOMPLISHED something for the company!!!

The RX100 mentioned elsewhere in the comments certainly looks impressive. Still the Pureview impact is likely to be several magnitudes greater. Besides the obvious benefits of Pureview, the compactness enables future innovations.

For example, when processor power/speed is even more impressive in the phone/tablet world, I imagine that all sets could have TWO cameras for 3D/stereo HIGH QUALITY photography with incredible compactness. These things seem to impress the kids of today as they watch 3D movies and TV, so it'll come to the mobile world.

Furthermore how about if Nokia creates a Nokia mount, and adapts the Ricoh GXR concept, meaning you could buy various types of lenses (extra wide angle/telelenses/macros) with integrated sensors and a software pack that goes with each lense.

The possibilities are endless. Whereas the coupling of phone and lense brings advantages. This decoupling, but at a higher level allowing both coupling and decoupling, creates an entirely new photography market.

Imagine if the Pureview camera was detatchable and useable on a WP8 phone I'm sure a lot more buyers would, me included, would fork out the money, knowing I get the use the camera module in future iterations/OS:s.

This would also turn Nokia even more inte a photography/media/video company: The "NOKIA NANO 4/3."

That would require some amazing software patches..a lot in the PureView technology is based on algorithms written for Symbian, and the specific drivers for the dedicated GPU/DSP .. very complicated, and that would make it really hard to just swap the sensor between two very different platforms.

In fact, I don't know if we are going to see the PureView PRO technology in a Windows NT based phone anytime soon. The platform (wp) supporst SoCs that can handle up to 20Mpix sensors, not 40+, which is needed if you want the full effect. So.. either PureView "light" or Microsoft would have to write specific software for that camera module, which needs that extra processing power.. I believe that was one of the main issues during the 808 development, they just couldn't get a hold of enough computing power to process all the pixels in real time, especially during video recording.

If Nokia spent 5 years of budget on developing Pureview and the business case is there, I'm sure both Nokia and Microsoft will make the porting of the FULL Pureview to WP, although it may not happen in WP8. We'll see. As for the rest of my idea, I'm sure there are massive obstacles. I was just toying with the possibilites that Nokia's breakthrough tech creates.

It should be achievable in WP8, I think there were similar limitations in WP7 with regard to the 16MP titan II, which they overcame with a dedicated ISP. Hopefully the same sort of thing can be done, I really want this camera, but not on a small low res screen. I'm sure MS will do what it can to get this tech on their OS as well, it would give them a huge boost to have their phone winning all the camera reviews.

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One huge advantage cameras have over the Nokia 808 is you don't need a 2 year contract with monthly data fees like here in the US with Verizon and others. Put the 808 camera in a Verizon feature phone like my Verizon Kin Twom with 8mp /720p camera and I would get it.

Thinking of doing the 808 with a month to month Straight Talk $45/mo unlimited talk/text and 2.5GB data plan (bring your own phone uses AT&T's network) - compared to many of Verizon / AT&T two year subscriptions you can come out ahead money wise with the 808 and Straight Talk.

As to the question of why get this when you can have a better camera - if you just want a camera don't look at a phone. I want a phone with a great camera and basic internet functionality and this covers those bases.

With phones reaching this level of image quality I guess it boils down to what you want. If you want to take the best photos possible you're still better off with a small camera like the RX100. If you want a camera that can locate sushi restaurants and costs money each month to operate, then this looks a like a great solution. You have to hand it to Steve Jobs. He realized you only buy a Mac every few years but phones provide an endless stream of cash.

HowaboutRAW: Its not clear to me that $650 does buy me a "much better" camera. I already have a 7D and a 1000D, so I'm thinking pocket sized. Maybe RX100. Is it "much better"? I have no use for zoom (just another thing to fail), 20MP is stupid, but raw is nice. The 808 is almost certainly more pocketable, especially when I don't have to carry two devices.

AbrasiveReducer: The 808 doesn't cost money per month if you use it instead of another phone. (Or don't use it as a phone.)

Not to mention you can transfer your pics to any other Bluetooth device (or NFC+BT for even easier transfer) and/or wifi. You can even use it as an USB disk with 3G/wifi/USB-tethering when out in the field playing with your photoshop and the pics taken. It has Facebook and twitter access (if needed).

And as a phone... it's the only one that has full 2-way call recording without hacking/rooting/jailbreaking/whatever(Nokia really ought to advertise this as a major selling point), loud ringtones, great speakerphone and has free worldwide offline point-to-point Navigation with a compass-guided pedestrian mode (which is interlinked with both the address-book and calender).

Plus this is the first decent P&S camera with DLNA :-)Oooh, and you can also record astonishing full HD video with with great audio that you can couple with BT/wifi/DLNA...

I think a Phone like this opens a lot of opportunities for an avid amateur P&S photographer.

If Nokia wasn't such an egghead with the repair of my Lumia 800 I would have bought one 2 months ago. Now the summer is halfway gone and I'll probably pass on this. Just being a stubborn egghead myself this time (No I can't let this situation go and don't forgive Nokia for being such an a$$hole)!

A pitty since I was really looking forward to have one. Now I'll probably settle for a either an Xperia (12Mpixels supposedly Xmor-sensor) or an SGS III (Sony sensor similar to iPhone 4S). However I've got no idea about the "glass" on these phones. To they even have proper glass lenses?

Octane: actually I would have liked to see more manufacturers to be more open. In fact some punters have asked Mr. Dinning 'normal' questions and remarks which was he was kind enough to answer in all honesty with arrogance. While others have gone to great lengths to avoid customers questions and thus denied responsability of certain subpar products (Yes, Apple and Samsung I am pointing at you).

to my understanding, Nokia's great idea was to put a 40 MP camera together with a phone, and to use digital zoom (with consequent lower, but still enough MP).Ok... but... ehi... Sony RX100 has 20 MP, optical zoom AND also digital zoom !... wonder what is the RX100's IQ when zooming down to 5 MP versus Nokia IQ ...

please do not forget that the Noki 808 PureView is a mobile phone with a camera. It was not build to compete with dedicated digital cameras. But under certain circumstances it can compete with some digital cameras and outperforms any other mobile phone.

I agree... to a point. yes, it is a phone, but one trying to be also a PORTABLE decent quality p&s. What struck me, was that also the RX1 can use the digital zoom trick, and it is more than competitive for price, portability and IQ. Sure,it doesn't have a phone. so, if the phone part is more important for you, and carrying a camera AND a phone is unconfortable to you, then yes, get the Nokia. But this page is for digital camera review, so it is correct to compare the Nokia to a digital camera.

Offhand, his remarks show both smarts and savvy. A good sign for Nokia. And what he says makes enough sense that nitpicking beyond all this is beyond me. Let's hear from people who buy and use the thing.

About a year ago, iOS received a lot of media attention because they were tracking users' habits, etc. Shortly thereafter, it was reported that AndroidOS may be even more aggressive at collecting user data. We can only assume that MS will follow suit. It seems the OS mfrs are more interested in tracking your habits and preferences than they are about providing a quality product. The future belongs to who has the most user data, and these companies would love to know everything possible about you.

I agree that they won't use your data against you. However, there are no guarantees that that data is safe. How many times have we heard about data breaches in the last few years? Google and Apple are not immune from data breaches! I'm not really paranoid - I just don't like lots of holes and loose ends left hanging out there that could directly affect me. Don't even get me started on Facebook - that is the stalker's best friend and most useful tool...

Do these new Nokia phones have a notification light? With my Nokia E6, I can set the phone on Silent and be notified that someone has tried to call or sent a SMS, MMS or other message. With the notification light, I can spot this from a distance - and I do not have to pick up the phone and turn it on in order to be notified that someone has tried to contact me. My other phone, the Sony Xperia S, also has a notification light in the form of a small dedicated LED lamp. So, do the newer Nokias have such a notification light function?

Excuse-me Per Inge Oestmoen, it's not against you, but it's how a photo-dedicated site becomes a phone-oriented site. I can see the next question to be how to implement the SkyPe apps, and after if we can access a multi-lingual talking GPS function, and then if this phone is ogg or flv files compatible and so on...

"Excuse-me Per Inge Oestmoen, it's not against you, but it's how a photo-dedicated site becomes a phone-oriented site. I can see the next question to be how to implement the SkyPe apps, and after if we can access a multi-lingual talking GPS function, and then if this phone is ogg or flv files compatible and so on..."

Time moves on - today, even some phones are capable of taking excellent pictures. The discussion of these phones do belong here, to DPReview.

Oh please, Menneisyys, don't be brain-washed ! A question about the notification light of a phone, be it photo-abled, is a discussion about phones and not about cameras. Don't act like a bull charging on a red cape !

Yes. Configurable messaging light, after missed calls or SMS. Would be cool to enable it if phone is set to remote camera mode over Wifi, using an iPhone as its viewfinder. Not yet a feature, but who knows ...

Something not touched on, but is nice, is that the display when the camera is asleep shows the time of day and whether you have missed a call or have notifications waiting for you - no need to press a button to wake it up to see it, its just always there. Part of the display technology it uses (downside is that the resolution is low).

Damian always seems pretty cool, but the thing is, even though Nokia is redefining the compact camera and pushing us in the direction compact photography should go in and eliminating the MP war, he's not too interested in putting the 808 in the hands of actual photographers and taking more input from us, not to mention, real world testing with imagination as a photographer would put it through, not pure "testing" with lab scenes.

What makes you think that he's not interested in appealing to photographers, and isn't listening to photographers? The 808 offers far more photography oriented features than any other smartphone, in addition to excellent image quality.

It certainly seems to me that he has paid far more attention to photographers than any other smartphone maker.

I do own the 808 and published two articles about it, one about how to successfully use the 808 in the studio (http://falklumo.blogspot.de/2012/07/the-icamera-nokia-808-pureview-part-ii.html ).

There are a number of points where the 808 needs improvement, simply because it now competes with more serious cameras. One is manual control over shutter speed ( fireworks, slave flashes, studio, sports etc. ). People know that they then need to control or configure ISO. Another sad ommission is a 3:2 aspect ratio mode.

I can understand that not everything feasible must go into a UI. To keep it clean. Fair enough.

But how about an updated API then? Such that Apps like CameraPro or others or a second app from Nokia ("CameraExpert" or so) can fill the gaps. And gaps there are.

Otherwise, I found the 808 a very capable and pleasing camera. Kudos to Nokia and the team.

nokia! i have your tires on my bicycle, rubber boots and your 3310 - they are very fine, now for the first time in 10 past years i start to feel like buying a phone. (luckily i don't have money) i respect a good design and i guess this is it.

Thanks Damian for taking the time to reply, I was VERY keen on the 808 till I saw the low res screen and plasticky build...WHY would you have such a low res screen on a phone with such an amazing camera?????? Screen res is lower than 3 yr old N8, makes no sense!!!

They have the same resolution and it's because Symbian can't handle more.As for the plastic- have you ever held one in your hand? It was the first thing that struck me, it's perfect. High grade "plastic" that feels good to the touch. Much better than my old Nexus S (THAT was cheap plastic) or the Sony Xperia P.

@Steppenwolf: I'm holding one in hynds right now. Didn't say it was plastic but the material of the 808 is, IMHO, nicer than that of the Xperia P. It seems plastic can feel better than metal. Thanks for your advice though.

I knowing that we are here speaking mainly about photography but the video section is also an important part of this camera.The 808 have an great performance in video too but it still lacks of an white balance lock and this distroys the stability of colour during panning.I'm not 100% shure but even the white balance presets are not real fixed they are more a kind of working point and so they are also changing during panning.

Hi... WOULDNT IT BE THE BEST TO HAVE MANUAL FOCUS ON THIS EXCELENT PHONE??? that could be added via software update PLEASE DAMIAN, PLEASE NOKIA!.Pd: This phone is the best ever made for multimedia people like me! best photo, best gadget for music (fm transmitter), roughest, etc etc etc! the best!

r iu sure??? manually I can adjust the distance tu be focused? maybe you are confused, I have a digi cam where you can set the distance to be focused, not only set "macro" or "infinite"... set the exact distance where you want to focus, like 15cm... 25cm... and scroll the distance that way...

I've been a visitor to this site for 10 years and funnily enough Nokia seems to be the only company that actually responds and gives insights- kudos!Also I have followed Damian's postings here and on the Nokia blog and am happy to read that there are good reasons for their decisions. Very interesting.I am very happy with the808. What I'd like to know is why it would chose 1/25 and ISO 250 and no flash in a indoor protrait with subject baout 1,5m away, that's strange. Maybe Damian could explain, is 1/25 considered fast enough to avoid camera shake? This is my image:http://img214.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=885214696_2012_07_23_0528_122_924lo.jpg

Nokia Belle Feature Pack 1 is brand new and in some aspects superior to Android or iOS (Multitasking, no unwanted data exchange, ofline navigation from the start, needs less resources for same performance).

Don't compare S60 with Nokia Belle FP1. For god's sake. Nokia was even smart enough to call it Nokia Belle and still people think this is a bloody N97.Do you hypocrites act the same when HTC brings out a new phone and start yelling "Oooh No not Donut again!"

Besides Android isn't very good at media itself. It took 4.0.1 (october 2011) before zooming in video-recording became possible OS-wise. This has been available far longer in even some older Symbian OS-versions (the N86 comes to mind, S60v3.2, OS9.3 2009).

Nonetheless. The 808 is another fine step in getting good camera's in cellphones. It just cannot replace my 'olde' Nikon D40 which has SPAM-modes which any 'serious' photographer require. Which is probably not the target audience for this phone, anyway.

That's the biggest thing that keeps this from possibly replacing my Canon s100 - I don't care about aperture priority, but in indoor lighting shutter priority is my most used mode - people moving at 1/15 just doesn't work, at all.

We agonised a lot over this area during development. The main limitation is the lack of variable aperture control (a size constraint). If you set a specific shutter speed you're either going to get over/under expsoure or the system needs to play with the gain (ISO) which may leave you with results you were not expecting. This time round we've provided user control over the ND filter so you can force faster or slower shutter speeds, dropped the longest shutter speed to 2.7 seconds (when using manual ISO) and a greater degree of exposure compensation and ISO settings. Whilst we recognise this is not ideal, this should provide sufficent control over every available variable (given the limitation of no variable aperture ) to force shutter speeds that would still result in correct expsoure.

For the future, we continue to seek ways of providing more direct control over settings applicable to such usage.

Damian: I'm less interested in a precise shutter speed than I am interested in a reasonably fast shutter speed. For example, a minimum shutter speed. Or... a minimum shutter speed per ISO level, thereby allowing interested users to specify the rate at which ISO is boosted as the scene darkens.

However, I'm not sure I can quite follow the reasoning - physical apertures have limits on how wide or narrow they can go as well, you have the same issues on a compact camera as well - my s100 won't go smaller than f8.0 either.

I have a friend who bought a Nikon superzoom which does a lot of 1/15 in indoor lighting, it's - the most frustrating experience I've ever seen. If he just takes pics, the camera chooses 1/15 and anyone who's not sitting down posing, or asleep, turns out as nothing but a blurry mess. If he wants to adjust the shutter speed, he has to screw around with the iso to "indirectly" set the shutter speed, and he's sitting over the for several minutes trying to get things right - while everyone is going "just take the !@#! picture already!".

It's like watching a Rube Goldberg machine...

Like the other poster said, having a *minimum* shutter speed would be a huge improvement, that's what I need.

Love the phone, I'm too hard on my phones so I settled for a used N8 and have been thrilled with its quality. The only thing that disappoints is dynamic range. Have you ever thought of using the Pureview technology to enhance dynamic range?

Mr. Rivers, what if you'd use the "sport"-mode? Wouldn't this prioritise shutterspeed over aperture? Because that's what I use (when available) when I require a higher shutter speed. You need enough light though. I asume that the 808 has at least the following scene-modes:Sport: usually prioritize shutter speedportrait: usually prioritize aperture

and various variations of these like nightshot (low shutterspeed, large aperture) etc...

You do know that Apple (or more precisely Steve Jobs) said during the first iPhone release in 2007 that Apps were not necessary and that web pages would be enough :-)

No one knew how big deal apps would make for mobile phones. Nokia was late but so was everybody else to.

Now the current status of the Microsoft Marketplace is 110.000 apps and steady rising. All major apps is available for Windows Phone devices. So I don't think its to late for Nokia, not at all. especially as Windows Phone 8 will be able to run all windows 8 apps if the developers choose to compile for both platforms.

Yes.. App store.. So many apps,But so many stupid ones! I always liked the way nokia did mobiles, and i liked symbian.. But today it is just obsolete. With windows 8 or android, i would sell the iphone i use now and would get this pureview 808 immediately!

@ sir_bazz: First it's WP8 not WM8. Secondly it's NOT that easy. Microsoft has made it VERY clear that you need to do quite a lot more than just recompile stuff between Win 8-intel and Win8-ARM (AKA Win8 RT) to get apps working. And that's not even taking Windows Phone 8 into account. Don't expect an Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Lightroom on your phone anytime soon.

However apps for WP7 will run (supposedly without modification) on WP8. But not vice versa (which is bad news for current WP7 users). Whom coincidentally has a 16Mpixel HTC Titan. Isn't that the highest Mpixel count on a phone prior to the 808? Has anyone ever compared that one? And what about Xperia's with Sony Exmor-sensors? Don't their compact cams use these too? What about them?

I guess DPreview must soon open a smartphone section. It wouldn't be bad I think. It would definitely draw more attention to the site and since Dpreview has a highly rated credibility.... I'm for it!

@epdm2be: That depends. If you're using just the WinRT features, then porting between phone and tablet is mostly about layout and UX redesign.

Of course there are some WinRT features in Windows not available in WP, but these are unlikely to be relevant for most consumer applications.

As for tablets, can you point out where MS has said you need to do "a lot more" than just compile for the two architectures--again assuming that you're using WinRT?

Because that's not my understanding. Consider: if you build your tablet app in .NET or HTML5 using WinRT, it will run on both architectures.

How is building it in native code any different, besides the need to recompile?

(I feel the need to clarify the difference between WinRT, which is the new Windows runtime and analogous to Win32 -- and Windows RT, which is the name of the ARM-based Windows 8 OS that only runs WinRT, and not also Win32 like Intel-based Windows 8. Whoever came up with this nomenclature should be put in stocks...)

This is the reason that I'm leery about the future of compacts. I think that innovators like Nokia (who have lead the smartphone camera IQ for a while) and Apple will eventually put cameras in market segments like the Nikon 1 and below out to pasture.

If mirrorless wants to stay relevant, the focusing speed is going to have to be improved.

Nowever. If you're going to add a histogram, you'll eventually have to offer some sort of RAW support to put the final nail in the coffin of enthusiast-level compacts.

I think this has been a long time coming.. the N8 was a warning shot.. 808 and beyond would finish the job. Apple is a big one, like I said earlier, P&S makers are really lucky that Apple are not behind the wheel of this technology, otherwise they will destroy them, and rather quickly.